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Introducing WIPpitch – The Social Space for Storytellers

Lee Hall Leave a comment

‘Writing a book is hard. Pitching it can be even harder…’

And with that in mind I’d like to introduce a new and growing platform designed to bring writers closer to each other and closer to professionals in the industry. WIPpitch is a platform designed to provide community support for storytellers by bringing them together both socially and collaboratively. From finding some much needed critiquing of your work to publishers/agents and even courses and events, you’ll find something useful within the realms of WIPpitch.

I’d like to take this opportunity to personally invite you to join WIPpitch via this exclusive invite link. Click on the picture below for further info.

Free Marketing Resources

Lee Hall Leave a comment

They say that everyone has a price and mine is free this month over on Patreon because everything I have released in March is available for all!

From my newly updated list of Book Promotion Websites to a free Twitter Audio Coaching Session all about my ten years spent on the platform – there are some cool and hopefully useful marketing resources for anyone looking to grow online as a creative. For the authors in the room I have also just released a new basic guide about selling books online.

These free marketing resources are just a taste of what is available to Rock Star and Royal Rock Star Patrons if you sign up and I have a stack of content coming. From more Twitter Coaching Sessions to my experience with getting book reviews and much more. Sign up now to get all my best stuff first.

You shall find those free resources below…

A List of Book Promotion Sites – my newest list of places I have successfully advertised with in the past year. Click on the graphic above or alternatively click here.

This beginner’s guide to selling books online goes back to basics and lays out how I sell books regularly so you can too! Click here or on the graphic above.

For the 23rd Twitter Coaching Session I talk about my 10 years spent on the platform. This series consists of literally hours of me laying out how to find success on the platform. If you sign up, you can access the whole series and find something that will help you grow also! Here’s the link.

For my 24th Coaching Session I have opened the floor for any questions anyone might have about Twitter or the wider subject of social media marketing. Drop me a line and I’ll happily answer your question in-depth for the next coaching session!

Of course for anyone who does sign up to my Patreon will receive rewards such as regular Twitter shout-outs and even a free digital copy of my guide book Consistent Creative Content. Thanks for dropping by!

Crossing $1000 in Book Royalties 2022

Lee Hall Leave a comment

Money.

A subject that can be kind of divisive for anyone who has published or released something creative in this world and for pretty much everyone else. With that discussion firmly to one side, this is my account of how I crossed $1000 in book royalties for the year 2022. Making any type of income from my books and creativity online crept up on me over the years and while I did spend my time churning out content and publishing with my head down doing the work, eventually my income began to grow.

Before I do dive in, I’ve always believed that creatives deserve to be paid for their work. And its perfectly valid for an artist or any creator to value their work. It is also normal and okay for a creator to aspire towards making a career out of their endeavours – something I one day aspire to do. But that word value is where we shall begin…

Value

Over the years of being published I’ve discovered that having a perceived value for your works is the first step to making money from them. From taking pride in a job done well to the hours you’ve put in to create something from scratch to even your public perception of that work. All of this stuff and the general success of it along with you, revolves around that value. There is a lot more I could say about value, but as long as you are aware of how you conduct yourself online and have pride towards your work, you’ll be fine.

Now, linked rather closely to value is pricing…

Pricing

That perception and belief of value should drive what you think is a fair price for your work. Pricing for books can be a sometimes tricky thing to master. I’ve tried numerous pricing strategies over the years but my major selling price was in fact my perceived regular price.

Having tried the lowest possible price for my e books via kindle ($0.99) for an extended time didn’t result in many consistent sales but after raising that price (around $2.99) things started moving more frequently. This is part value and psychological towards the potential reader. Low prices can be good for a temporary book promotional boost, but a decent competitive price over an extended time will do good for your sales eventually. Paperbacks are another factor here also and seeing as I used to sell predominantly digital, paperback sales began to rise for me in recent times. This is probably due to fair pricing and value while also because of my rising profile on social media. Having 40,000 Twitter followers does help sometimes but it took a while for me to get there.

With regular sales at regular price, royalties will trickle in consistently and we’re not talking several sales a day here. Just a consistent one or two sales every three or four days will work wonders for that royalty balance trust me. And trust, is a huge factor in this…

Trust

Just how does a creative earn trust online? Well it isn’t easy and it takes time, a lot of time. But if you take responsibility in everything you do in the public facing domain of social media, eventually you’ll earn that trust of others. I sell most of my work through social media because I am present and generally pleasant. Decent behaviour sticks out big-time in this day and age. Running parallel to that time I have spent earning trust is consistent creative content…

The Three C’s

Those who know me will also know my guide book is titled Consistent Creative Content and I wholeheartedly believe they are three things any creator needs to succeed. It took me six or so years to release eight books and using my time rather well it has propelled me towards higher royalties. This writer journey is a marathon not a sprint and you may be one or two books in or more, but over time it gets better if you keep going. Readers like choice and if they make a good enough connection with one of your books, they will return for another, so having that option will increase your chances of sales. Backlist really is King and alongside that is another huge factor, promotion…

Promotion

Book Promotion is a huge umbrella of variety and to the first-time author a rather daunting concept. You can only do what you know how to do at the time of a book release and that’s okay. I’ll admit my book promo methods were limited during the release of my first book and over some years I learned a lot. All of the things I did learn I then applied back to that first release and it is now one of my most successful.

With book promotion and discovering the many methods it involves, this will take time. Generally, I pay for advertising via book promotion websites while also plugging my work online occasionally. My method for regular sales is to focus more on convincing potential readers to be interested in me and then hope they move on to my books – this concept works for me mostly…

I am regularly present on social media. For those who aren’t, advertising takes many forms and if you want serious results then sometimes you have to pay serious money.

BookBub is a promo site that brings fantastic returns and during 2022 a perfect BookBub storm unexpectedly erupted for me. It was during the run-up to the final release in my Order of the Following Series that I managed to grab a coveted featured deal -BookBub’s ‘Holy Grail’ of advertising packages, for the first book in the series. Of course I pounced and put into action everything I’ve learned to ensure maximum sales and KU page reads.

That featured deal happened back in September of 2022 and now in February of 2023 I am still getting page reads, reviews and sales from it.

An effective book promotion, will serve a book for plenty of time after.

Most of my fictional works are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited and that gives maximum opportunity for extended royalties from digital downloads. Quantity is key here and if you can sell books in quantity, the money will eventually roll in.

Quick Fire Factors

And so I’ve hopefully laid out the details to reaching a huge royalty milestone. Here are some quick fire factors that helped shape that journey.

Writing in Series – long term but this helps, when my series was complete it became way more lucrative, keep going series writers!

Writing Stand Alone – peppered between those releases in series are stand alone books in a variety of genre and length. This helped me big-time. Remember backlist is King.

Supporting the industry – I regularly review books by fellow authors from my social media connections. This has helped me regularly release reviews that serve as blogging content and is an opportunity to gain trust and friendships from fellow authors.

Social Media Presence – there are a lot of potential readers out there online, spending time with them will drive sales, eventually.

Time is your friend – it takes time to get to anywhere good on a creative journey.

Paid Advertising – to make money you sometimes have to spend money.

Kindle Unlimited – most of my fictional works including my series is enrolled in KU. Those page reads add up if you can reach readers.

Taking this journey seriously – serious results comes from a serious attitude. I am always doing something to help market myself or my stuff online. From blog posts, to reviews, to social media presence to the odd book price promo or advertising.

Concluding Thoughts

I’ve tried to be as neutral as possible when highlighting my experiences of making over $1000 is book royalties because like I said at the start, money can be divisive subject. For this account I have homed in on certain subjects that all work in unison to create the perfect recipe for book royalties. You shall find more specific guidance below.

Thank you for reading!

This account was inspired by a recent Patreon Audio Presentation where I talk in detail about my journey. You can find that here.

Further Reading:

Building Trust on Twitter

My Most Recent Guide on Securing a BookBub Featured Deal

A guide to Selling Books on Social Media

Twitter Coaching Sessions

A concise list of Book Promotion Websites

10 Years on Twitter: A Reflection

Lee Hall 3 Comments

10 years ago I started my Twitter journey. Back then, I’d only really dreamed of having the numbers I have now as well as so many other cool things.

‘Join Twitter, build a following and share your writing with them…’

That statement is the narrow version of advice I found at the time and well, nothing worthwhile in this life is really simple or easy.

The truth is, I spent many years on Twitter not really knowing what I was doing or what I needed to do in order to reach people and grow. Everyone’s Twitter experience is unique to them and perhaps that’s what makes it special. You get back what you put in and social media is still quite a new concept viewed by many in a negative light but as someone who has spent an extended time on Twitter, good things can be found. That void you find yourself shouting into does eventually answer back because I am proof of that concept. In 2020 my following had crept to a moderate 3,000 or so followers. A year later it was 20,000 and during that time something happened, not just in the world but in my world because all I did was spend more time on the platform and with every tweet or interaction I learned. In my mind I marked what worked and what didn’t time and time again. Eventually and after that time, the needle began to turn and then eventually bend in my favor. People, good people began to notice me simply because I worked on my presence and what those people responded to.

Conversational tact and manners are all anyone needs to succeed on Twitter. You don’t need a gimmick or an act, you just need to be genuine and I say that from experience because for all the things social media is viewed as, most people look to it for an escape or to find others who are like them and if you do conduct yourself in a pleasant way, good things will eventually happen.

I couldn’t possibly sum up all of my experience on Twitter in just a blog post and those who do know me will also be aware of my many resources that delve deep into the intricacies of how to find success on the platform. While that success may be in the eye of the beholder, through my time on Twitter I have learned to reach people, keep people interested and even persuade them to buy my books and invest in me.

Of course I have returned that with my own support and as long as you can appear genuine in a sometimes volatile world online, you cannot be beaten. Supporting others is important to me and always will be.

You can find my best Twitter resources here.

Twitter Coaching Sessions 1 to 20 – Out Now!

Lee Hall Leave a comment

Are you looking to get more out of Twitter?

During my decade spent on the platform I’ve learned a huge amount of highly valuable skills to turn my Twitter into a hive of followers, book sales and overall success as a creative online. Whether you are looking to grow or even make money from your content or perhaps you are just unsure where to start, my 20 Twitter coaching sessions will teach you how as I lay everything out to find success on the platform. These exclusive audio sessions cover a wide range of subjects such as:

Creating the best possible profile;

What to tweet about for sucess;

Selling and promoting books on Twitter;

Earning the trust of your followers;

Reaching a Million impressions and so much more.

These unique audio sessions will light the path for anyone at any level of experience on Twitter to better results through methods that work. Sign up here today and carve your own path to Twitter success!

Five Ways to Find Success on Patreon

Lee Hall

The subscription service, something that’s very much on trend these days and Patreon basically provides hosting for independent creatives to put together their own. Whether you are a writer, artist, video game reviewer or pretty much any other content driven creator with something to offer – you can put that content behind a paid subscription wall and start earning money but…

Simply saying that is a narrow version of a much wider picture because like most ventures, even ones on trend take work to reach some level of success. Just what does that success look like? And how do you get there?

Well, for me. I feel my content has some value and alongside a growing social media following, the time for me to launch a Patreon (back in 2021) was right. After quite some time now, I am proud to say that I’ve got several Patrons who regularly view my content and probably the most wonderful thing about that is, I’ve only had one person unsubscribe since launch.

This guide lays out what I have learned as a Patreon creator while convincing Patrons to invest in and stick by me. The following five ways aren’t in a particular order as they go hand in hand. Let’s dive in…

One: Exclusive is key…

Being a content creator online is a huge umbrella of different things but if you have something unique in what you create and can offer it exclusively on Patreon, you’ll generate some interest eventually.

This year I launched my Twitter Coaching Sessions which is basically me narrating to my Patrons all of the things I have learned over the years on Twitter. You cannot find this audio stuff by me anywhere else online.

Since then I have also extended that exclusive audio content into book narrations and even further guides or messages to my Patrons.

This stuff is also in the same neighbourhood as much of the guides I am known for in blogging and on social media. You can read a lot of my free guides on this blog, but I’ll always say to my audience that the better stuff is on Patreon and Patrons want to know they are getting something for their subscription.

Two: Two Tiers sells One Tier…

Talking of subscription, for most of my tenure on Patreon, I kept to a single low price Tier but being experienced with pricing from publishing books, I know that a slightly higher price can be a good tactic to sometimes drive sales. It can also drive sales for lower priced books on my backlist.

Using that theory, I launched a higher priced tier to try and get more lower priced Patrons. Upon launch, one of my existing Patrons immediately switched to the higher price and I even attracted another Patron for that higher tier as well as eventually getting more lower tier Patrons.

Having variety in price works to capture more Patrons on a side by side basis.  

Three: External Rewards Really Help…

Both tiers on my Patreon offer something in return for signing up and to me its important to give an impression that patrons will be getting a little more and then giving them more.

From a Twitter shout-out to a free digital copy of my guide book, these external rewards also attract the attention of others so they kind of work as indirect advertising – especially the regular shout-outs.

If you can think of something to give others which has some value, it will hopefully work to attract and then keep patrons.

Four: Regular Content over time is your friend

After launch, I began to regularly release content for the next few months. This gained just a couple of patrons in that time and then I kind of ran out of ideas…

Six months later I decided to re-launch with a brand new idea for exclusive content. That idea now represents 19 Twitter Coaching sessions and much more. Running point with that content is the regular influx of new patrons and patrons who have stayed. Since re-thinking and re-launching I have churned out content every month, so if you can think of content that has scope to be a series or regularly released, it will help.

Alongside the regular content, time is your friend because starting out can be hard on Patreon, and the more content you have, the more lucrative it will appear for potential patrons. A few month’s of exclusive posts is way better than just a handful. That re-launch month I put out nine different posts which gave potential patrons plenty of choice. Now I tend to release something at least every week/ten days. This frequency hasn’t let me down yet.

Five: The odd freebie helps…

Having exclusive content behind a paywall is great, but littered amongst my content is the odd freebie that aims to attract newer faces. Some of my Twitter coaching sessions are free for all to listen and this works quite well to give potential patrons a taster of what they could be investing in if they do sign up.

Many of my other guides premiere over on Patreon and will then later release on my blog with the original post linked.

I have even released a short snippet of a book narration for free and put the longer version behind the pay wall.

Bonus: Pick your moments on social media…

Now it might be easy to say that I’ve got thousands of followers on Twitter so surely that means its easy for me to attract patrons right?

Well, actually its been quite difficult because like a lot of platforms they tend to limit the reach of certain posts/subjects. Sharing anything Patreon based on Twitter hasn’t really done particularly well in terms of visibility for me. There is a lot to unpack with this subject but I have managed to attract people from Twitter to my Patreon but in a certain way.

We all want to shout about our content and tell the world we’ve got a Patreon, and I did that to begin with. Now I pick my moments on social media and share my content on occasion. Picking the right time is kind of dependent on your own circumstances but I’ll just say, less is more.

You’ll find my Patreon link in the bio of my Twitter profile and so whenever any traffic comes to my profile, its one of the first things someone will see. Sometimes just working on attracting others to my profile will naturally drive traffic to that link in the bio.

Overall my Patreon journey has been incredibly rewarding and to have loyal patrons paying their hard earned money to access my exclusive content is a dream come true, it is also really motivating so I’m going to carry on. I’ve got plenty of ideas for exclusive stuff and of course you’ll find it right here.

If you are thinking of starting your own Patreon journey my advice is simple, make sure you have a stack of content at the ready and keep creating.

You can find my Patreon here and it is stacked full of resources for creatives who want to get better results on Twitter, publishing, and so much more. There is even a full length sci-fi western novella.

The Reluctant Book Marketer Podcast – Branding on Twitter

Lee Hall Leave a comment

Shout-out to The Reluctant Book Marketer Podcast hosted by fellow author Jody Sperling for recently having me as a guest.

In this episode we talk about Twitter branding and the wider journey of being an author in the social media age.

You can listen here via Spotify

Or here via Substack

Jody has recently launched a Kickstarter for his soon to be published guide book ‘The Seven-Figure Marketing Mindset For Novelists’. You can check that out here.

Five Ways to Get more Book Reviews

Lee Hall

Let’s face it. Finding reviews for our books is hard. The struggle is something that unites many of us who have published works out there and I’m semi obsessed with finding solutions to sometimes difficult things so here are five ways to get more book reviews.

This post first featured over on Patreon where the real party is happening. Sign up to see articles like this first as well as a huge array of other cool resources.

Selling in Quantity

This may sound obvious to some but the more units you sell, the higher chance someone will read and then review. Now there are many inputs to this concept but quantity really is the key to finding more reviews. Just how do you move books in huge quantities?

From my own experience running a free promo or a price reduction will certainly help. My best influx of reviews have come from big-time free promos where digital downloads were in the thousands.

Mentioning your work regularly across social media will also help. I do anything and everything (within reason) on my social media platforms to regularly sell books through presence and the occasional mention and if you really want to sell books, then you’ll eventually figure out a way.

Running my most recent numbers has pointed towards a review for every 100 sales I get. So maybe quantity is the key…

High End Advertising

This brings us nicely to finding some help to tell the world about your book. Paid advertising is pretty easy to find these days online but the very cream of the crop in advertising should lead you to readers who review. Premiere book promotion sites like BookBub boast to have readers who review and so this is a great place to target readers.

Having successfully clinched three BookBub Featured deals over the years, these were the very best value in terms of sales and then reviews. You can find my list of book promotion sites here.

Shouting About it

If there is one thing I can guarantee, it is every week without fail that I mention on Twitter how important reviews are for authors. Important because they help us in so many ways from finding new readers to potentially shaping our future work. The more we shout about it, the more many readers will realise and I will happily admit before being published, reviewing books wasn’t at the top of my priority so reminding readers will help the greater good.

Approach Book Bloggers

There are plenty of bookish bloggers out there looking for their next read and much like me I quite enjoy being approached by authors looking for reviews. If you offer a free digital copy in exchange for a an honest review and as long as your approach them nicely, someone will eventually say yes.

Consider joining a Review Platform

As a tenured book blogger I have my own profile over on Reedsy Discovery which is an awesome review platform that does its best to place books into the hands of reviewers from indie or self published authors. Some of these platforms have a joining fee but they will also put in the effort to pair your book with the best possible reviewer candidate.

And so that’s five ways to get more book reviews. If you have any other methods then do please drop a comment below. Thanks for reading and for more awesome resources, check out my Patreon

Further Reading:

How I landed my 3rd BookBub Featured Deal

A guide to selling books on social media

Books not selling? A troubleshooter guide

Spooky Season Sign-Up Special

Lee Hall

Time for a special promotion to celebrate the month of October! 

Seeing as I’m supposed to be a horror author and I generally enjoy the season of spookiness I have decided to run a promotion to celebrate. 

If you sign up to either of my Patreon tiers this month, I’ll send you a free digital copy of my spooky paranormal romance The Ghost Beside Me. 

All existing Patrons and those who do sign up to either tier will then all be entered into a draw to receive a signed paperback copy that I’ll happily mail to you wherever you are in the world and if you can provide me with a mailing address. 

Happy Spooky Season!